Chapter 186

Oh, so this is the Green Green Grassland, huh?

The driver sighed, his anger turning to helplessness—he truly envied Master Pi Fu's big heart, or rather, his lack of one.

"If this is truly a maze lock with spatial distortion effects, once we lose sight of each other, we'll easily be pulled apart."

Zhao Zijing had now regained her composure and shouted loudly: "I'm currently with Master Pi Fu and Midnight Howl—what about you? Report your statuses."

Just now, when the hot air balloon crashed, everyone's landing points were relatively close.

Li Cheng, Zhao Zijing, and Midnight Howl are one group.

The driver, the bandaged man, Mendoza, and Catherine are another group.

Both groups could hear each other's voices and felt they were very near, yet they couldn't break through the tall grass to find the other group.

Electromagnetic waves are blocked; radios don't work, and reconnaissance skills can't penetrate the grass. Moreover, the grass has the ability to self-repair and revert to its original state.

For example, tie one end of a rope to a stem, then pull the other end away—a short distance later, the tied end simply vanishes.

It's as if the observer effect from quantum mechanics had manifested in the macroscopic world—only things constantly observed by living beings remain unchanged.

That means there's no way to mark paths by leaving landmarks.

This was proven elsewhere too—the three hydrogen balloons Li Cheng had left beside the road to mark distances had all floated away, dissolving into the pitch-black sky.

"At least the mission battery wasn't lost."

Zhao Zijing held the mission battery, paused thoughtfully, then shouted toward the driver on the other side of the grass: "Driver, do you have any vehicle that can carry people? Let's head in the opposite direction of the radar map's arrow and see if we can get back to the road."

"Got it."

The driver pulled a convertible four-wheel-drive SUV from his backpack slot—it resembled an African safari vehicle, small and delicate with almost no protective capacity, but advantageously compact enough to fit directly into a backpack.

Zhao Zijing then activated a Dragon Ball capsule, summoning an amphibious armored SUV.

Both groups headed toward the road simultaneously; to prevent anyone from falling off the open-top vehicle, the driver's side tied themselves together with a climbing rope—himself and the three ordinary members.

Amid the oppressive atmosphere, they drove for an hour—logically, they should've reached the road by now, yet ahead lay only endless green tall grass.

Worse still, the mission battery was malfunctioning.

"Something's wrong!" Midnight Howl picked up the battery with a serious expression; originally, the center of the barrel-shaped battery glowed uniformly with a pale yellow light.

But now, the crystal at its top had stopped glowing entirely—like a phone's battery level dropping from 100% to 90%.

"Could it be leaking power?"

Li Cheng took the battery, his gaze sharpening, and spoke in a trembling, electric voice: "Su Yunjin, how are you going to repay what you owe me—"

The voice was so uncanny that Zhao Zijing, driving from the front seat, couldn't help glancing at the rearview mirror, her face frozen in a look of utter horror.

Li Cheng calmly set the battery down, his tone serene: "Alright, confirmed—it's definitely leaking power."

Zhao Zijing forced her expression to remain composed and analyzed coldly: "In the Killing Ground, no anomaly is the best anomaly. Conversely, any unexpected situation could turn dire."

Midnight Howl frowned: "What do you mean?"

"We need to turn back."

Zhao Zijing slammed on the brakes, rolled down the window, and shouted out to the driver's group to reverse course and head toward the direction indicated by the radar map.

Both groups turned around and sped forward at full speed.

The battery's "remaining power" continued to drop, gradually reaching 80%, and finally, a change appeared ahead.

On some of the tall grass blades, ash emitting a charred odor began to appear.

The ash was slightly sticky, feeling like space sand, and gave Li Cheng an inexplicably familiar sense of déjà vu.

It resembled the flesh of a Godworm Infected?

It was just a feeling—since the ash had become inorganic, Li Cheng couldn't reverse-engineer the Godworm Infected's abilities by absorbing its genes.

The further they drove, the denser the ash became, until suddenly, a depression appeared ahead.

The depression was about ten meters in diameter and three meters deep. No plants grew inside, nor was it covered in humus. At its center lay a skeletonized corpse, slumped sideways, wearing a loose tactical jacket.

Beside the corpse stood a metal stele over two meters tall.

Li Cheng sucked in a sharp breath: "Yamcha!"

"What the hell is Yamcha?"

Even the aloof Zhao Zijing couldn't help retorting, slammed on the brakes, and ordered the distant driver and others to stop.

The sudden corpse was too bizarre—Zhao Zijing dared not approach directly, so she launched a drone to fly low and approach.

Since no grass grew inside the depression, the drone successfully transmitted footage.

The skeleton remained in its sideways slump, its tactical jacket embroidered with a flowing silver inscription: 【Amalgam】.

Zhao Zijing exclaimed in shock: "Mercury Alloy?!"

Li Cheng instantly realized: "That guild?"

"What are you two talking about?"

Midnight Howl frowned—he was neither an agent of the Global Supernatural Alliance nor did he have Li Cheng's time and experience gathering data, so he didn't understand what they meant.

"It was a small guild that had already been wiped out."

Zhao Zijing spoke quickly: "The Killing Ground game began four years ago; the earliest players were all randomly selected by the Killing Ground."

Back then, everyone was just beginning to understand the Killing Ground—there was no order whatsoever. Conglomerates and state machinery hunted players, players killed conglomerates, players killed each other—total chaos.

This situation lasted about half a year until the Whale Song Organization established a global anonymous forum, giving players a platform to communicate and the leverage to negotiate and compromise with state machinery, thereby somewhat containing the spread of chaos."

"At that time, many lone-wolf players began forming small organizations and societies."

Like 【Beating the Shark Center】

【Flying Spaghetti God Sect】

【Iron Brotherhood】

【Black Organization—Another Day of Being Infiltrated】

These small societies' names were all designed for memes and jokes—both fan clubs and places for novice players to band together for warmth.

Many of the large guilds you know today, such as the 【Demon Scientists Alliance】 and the 【Beast of a Thousand Throats】, began as small organizations.

Li Cheng added that player forums were not like Baidu Tieba, with their habit of arbitrarily deleting posts; one could still find many old, high-quality threads, and through them learn about that era.

The 【Mercury Alloy】 took its name from the same-named antagonist organization in the light novel 【Full Metal Panic!】; it was among the earliest small hobbyist groups, and also one of the few guilds to survive the Chaos Period.

A year ago, the guild's leader, a Level 30 Psychic-type powerhouse named 【Mithril】, took all ten members deep into the Killing Grounds for unknown reasons—and all of them vanished.

(End of Chapter)